Cambridge professor Emily Wilde is good at many things: She is the foremost expert on the study of faeries. She is a genius scholar and a meticulous researcher who is writing the world’s first encyclopaedia of faerie lore. But Emily Wilde is not good at people. She could never make small talk at a party—or even get invited to one. And she prefers the company of her books, her dog, Shadow, and the Fair Folk to other people.
So when she arrives in the hardscrabble village of Hrafnsvik, Emily has no intention of befriending the gruff townsfolk. Nor does she care to spend time with another new arrival: her dashing and insufferably handsome academic rival Wendell Bambleby, who manages to charm the townsfolk, get in the middle of Emily’s research, and utterly confound and frustrate her.
But as Emily gets closer and closer to uncovering the secrets of the Hidden Ones—the most elusive of all faeries—lurking in the shadowy forest outside the town, she also finds herself on the trail of another mystery: Who is Wendell Bambleby, and what does he really want? To find the answer, she’ll have to unlock the greatest mystery of all—her own heart. - from Netgalley.com
I received this ARC from Netgalley.com at no cost and am providing an unbiased review.
When I noticed this title up for review, I almost skipped by it without reading the story description. Normally I would think, oh, it's some picture book with paragraph descriptions of how this author thinks of how faeries look/act. Well, once I started reading it, that does fit the description, sort of. Emily is our main character, and is working on an encyclopedia of faeries. She is traveling to the arctic north from Cambridge to finish up her encyclopedia with a last section about the 'Hidden Ones'. She has just settled in for the winter in a remote village, when her rival, Wendall, shows up on her doorstep. They are polar opposites, him being the attractive, boistrous, friendly , outgoing one of the two of them.
I won't go much more into the story, as I am sure you want to enjoy it yourself. I liked how a bit of a characters story surprised me. but overall improved the story. World building was fine, nothing overly drastic, but how much is there to really describe about an arctic winter? There probably could have been a more descriptive narrative of the fae king's place, but I felt it left more for the reader to imagin. As I go back to post this review, I notice in the heading that this is book one of the Emily Wilde series, so I will be watching for further adventures to be written.
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